Taken separately, the use of work holders in manufacturing goods and the use of protective inserts for shipping goods are well known to industry. Work holders are currently used in a wide variety of industries. For example, work holders are often used in the semiconductor industry where much effort has been directed to using ultra-clean manufacturing processes. Work holders are also used in more traditional manufacturing environments such as automobile manufacturing where they can be used to hold and position large components during assembly. Regardless of the industry, work holders are beneficial because they can be used to repeatedly position goods to promote assembly and transport between assembly stations.
Protective inserts are commonly used in conjunction with shipping packaging whenever there is concern that an item could be damaged in transit. These inserts can comprise a wide variety of shapes, configurations and materials. Typically, these protective inserts are custom tailored for use with a specific product. As such, the protective inserts have little value when transport is complete resulting in them being discarded in the trash and occupying space in landfills.